Converting a Pass-Through Skimmer to a Recirculator

[ca1ore]

I’m on a mission to find a bigger skimmer for my current, overstocked 450. I simply don’t like the range of stubby, needle wheel options that seem all the rage thes days. I much prefer an old school mazzei or Beckett driven skimmer with some height (and corresponding contact time). My current skimmer is terrific, and unique, but also I think undersized. Since I have a basement fish room, I am neither space nor height constrained.

I’m an unabashed fan of, sadly now out of business, Marine Technical Concepts; so when I saw their largest commercial skimmer HSA-3000 for sale on eBay I pounced. They did make a larger HSA-5000, but it was only a prototype (if memory serves). There are two things I don’t like about the HSA series. One, since it’s a pass-through style skimmer, debris has a tendency to build up in the Venturi. Second, it’s just too &$#& short.

This thread will detail my efforts to make it into a super skimmer, both for my current 450 and the inevitable bigger future tank.

 

[Saveafish]

Following

 

[ca1ore]

Unmodified

 

[Saveafish]

Look at that sexy thing. Shorter neck longer body. He needs an ext. on his body.

 

[ca1ore]

Yup!

 

[ca1ore]

Going to have a riser built, but need to raise the Beckett’s first.

 

[Saveafish]

You bringing it to 6' mark?

 

[ca1ore]

It’s 50” as unmodified. I’m gong to add a 24” riser to the main chamber plus 4” for the neck cleaner, so nominally 78” tall.

 

[ca1ore]

A pass through skimmer essentially pushes the full output of the ‘foaming’ pump into and out of skimmer continuously. A recirculator uses the ‘foaming’ pump to circulate water within the unit, relying on a second smaller pump to push water into and out of the skimmer. I’ve used both, and while I found them to both work well, rcirculators work better when more finicky Venturi like the Beckett is being used.

This is a pretty easy skimmer to modify because it has a square bottom section that makes adding bulkheads easy. Not so easy to do it in cylindrical acrylic. So basically I have to add the suction for my recirculating ‘foamer’ pump ( a PanWorld 200) and a way to get new water into the unit. Latter is simply a 1” bulkhead connected to the pump through a ball valve. Former is a 3/4” bulkhead that feeds the tall nozzles in the last picture.

 

[ca1ore]

Extension riser will take some time to get - I don’t fabricate acrylic so am outsourcing that bit. I generally have preferred the mazzei injectors to the Beckett; though twitchy-ness aside, the latter are monsters. I could easily replace the Beckett’s down the road with a couple of larger mazzei.

 

[Saveafish]

She is gonna scream. I'm waiting on parts for mine too. I'm raising mine up too.

 

[ca1ore]

Are you going to make your own riser? I couldn’t find a reasonable source for large acrylic tube, so decided I’d be better off having somebody more capable with acrylic do it for me. Blue acrylic seems hard to find - maybe that’s why MTC switched to black. I may ultimately swap out the Beckett injectors for larger mazzei, but I’ll give the former the old college try initially. I’m thinking changing the unit to recirculating will expose the injectors to less debris.

 

[Saveafish]

I had Barr aquatic do mine got it in today.

 

[Saveafish]

I sent my gasket in so the holes matched up.

 

[ca1ore]

I had Barr aquatic do mine got it in today.

Please post a picture when you get it.

 

[S-t-r-e-t-c-h]

Is this that HSA that I linked to a few weeks ago? LOL!

Love to see the MTC equipment get rehabbed. I have a pro-cal that needs to be fully replumbled and an HSA-1000 that needs a new injector that I still need to decide what direction I want to go with. Following!

 

[ca1ore]

Is this that HSA that I linked to a few weeks ago? LOL!

Love to see the MTC equipment get rehabbed. I have a pro-cal that needs to be fully replumbled and an HSA-1000 that needs a new injector that I still need to decide what direction I want to go with. Following!

Yes, it is all your fault ……. probably would have let it pass, but the guy was open to offers and local to me.

I've had a lot of MTC stuff over the years - helped that I knew the Wojcik bothers before they started the business. Have had a couple of HSA-1000 skimmers, HSA-2000, my current PowerPro, a ProCal, various ozone reactors and even an air-pump driven doser (not sure what happened to that - must have sold it off at some point). And now the HSA-3000.

 

[Saveafish]

I had him drill little holes than I drilled out a lil bigger and tapped them my self. Nots use silly con grease if you do. Keeps it from chipping and binding up.
I only went 16" on my ext. I did go up to the 8 series mazz.

 

[ca1ore]

Nice! HSA-1000 or 3000? Interesting to me that the Beckett is much more sensitive to output pressure than the mazzei. Unless you raise the former up above the water level in the skimmer, it won't work well at all.

 

[ca1ore]

Here it is just awaiting the riser and swabbie. The folks I have reached out to for the riser either haven't replied (always annoys me when people cannot muster the energy for even a perfunctory reply) or are backed up. Hrumph! I’m an experienced woodworker, with an array of machines and routers; maybe I’ll just make it myself. How hard could it be?